Category: North York Moors
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St. Bartholomew’s Day
A rather dull start to St. Bartholomew’s Day, a day which has some weather lore associated with it: If the twenty-fourth of August be fair and clear, Then hope for a prosperous autumn that year. At St. Bartholomew, There comes cold dew. All the tears that St. Swithin can cry, St. Bartlemy’s mantle wipes them…
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The Weird Mystery of the Moor — A Guisborough Legend
Here’s another story by Richard Blakeborough, published in the Whitby Gazette on May 5th, 1905. I’m not sure if they’re too long to share on this blog, but I’m really interested in them, especially the ones about places I know such as this one about Guisborough Moor where I can picture the landscapes. Some of…
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Middlesbrough’s Dark Past: the 1961 Cannon Street Riots
A reminder popped up on my phone today that back in 1961, things had hit a boiling point on Cannon Street in Middlesbrough. Three nights of rioting had built up to that day. The spark was the killing of an 18-year-old named Jeffrey Hunt, and the place was like a pressure cooker, especially that August,…
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Commondale, or should that be Sleddale?
From Three Howes Rigg, if you look westward, you might’ve thought you are seeing into Commondale, or maybe Sleddale? Those fields of green let their waters drain into Sleddale Beck. The village of Commondale is tucked away in the dale. Back in its heyday, that Guisborough Priory was a big landowner in the north of…
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Risks to our hedgerows
The Carrs, that sprawling lowland nestled between Roseberry and the Eston hills. In this photo, the recently cropped arable fields contrast sharply with the lush green pastures. The hedgerows planted when farming practice was to rotate fields, show signs of neglect and are now ragged. They’ve probably been reinforced by post and wire stock fencing.…
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Lilla Cross – A Tale of Loyalty and Bravery
On a day that turned out so dreich that even a duck would not be happy, a tramp across Fylingdales Moor to Lilla Cross might have seemed a good idea when we set off. No wind whistled across the heather, but instead there were faint echoes of woeful cries that must have reverberated through the…
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Thursdays with the National Trust but a photograph from yesterday
Thursdays usually find me as an eager volunteer with the National Trust, and today I was at one of their tenanted farms, located in the vicinity of the Bridestones. The job: the Herculean task of repairing the ailing state of the fence boundary between a small patch of woodland and a field containing some sort…
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Park Nab’s Holly Tree Wall
This is Park Nab in Kildale — a sandstone crag that is one of the prime venues for climbing in North Yorkshire. Now, I’d never go so far as to call myself a “climber,” yet I’ve dabbled in the sport, to an extent. Amongst my successes is a route aptly named: “Twin Cracks,” finishing its…
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Prehistoric Rock Art at Garfit Gap
Garfit Gap, that well-known col on the Cleveland Way nestling between Cold Moor and the Wainstones, is one of the four natural routes climbing up from the Cleveland Plain, southward over the barrier of Cleveland Hills into Bilsdale. Each route involves a formidable climb. Nowadays, though, the Clay Bank route, aided and abetted by the…
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Saved by a pigeon
With Roseberry wrapped in a misty shawl, and rain pouring its way down, I kitted up for a run up the Topping – a dash, more than my usual stroll. Well, maybe not a dash. Those days are long gone. It wasn’t exactly a day for photography, all grey and soggy. But, just then, a…